During a recent episode of Kristen Doute‘s Sex, Love, and What Else Matters podcast, the SUR manager opened up about Scandoval and shared a text that he believes proves Sandoval's tryst with Leviss began in summer 2022.
On March 3, Sandoval and longtime girlfriend Ariana Madix split after the TomTom co-owner was caught allegedly having an affair with Leviss, thereby ending their nine-year relationship. The scandal shocked the Bravosphere and beyond and continues to get messier as new details emerge.
Peter Madrigal - Paul Archuleta/Getty Images
According to Madrigal who came prepared with receipts of his own, Sandoval sent him a text in January that later made him wonder about things kicked off between the pair.
"I get an interesting text from one Tom Sandoval. He hasn’t texted me in six months," Madrigal, 38 recalled. "And then he texts me and he says, and I quote, 'Dude, exclamation point. Just watched the first episode LOL, exclamation point. Did you bang Raquel the night after SUR, exclamation point, question mark, crying laughing face.'"
Sandoval was referencing the show's season 10 premiere, which aired on Feb 8, and highlighted Leviss' fling with Madrigal as she began to date following her divorce from James Kennedy. In the episode, Madrigal asked Leviss on a date during her shift at SUR, with the pair going on to make out off camera, per their VPR co-star, Scheana Shay.
Madrigal told Doute that he now believes that Sandoval was worried about whether he and Leviss went home together because he was already romantically involved with Leviss.
"If you go through my text messages with Tom Sandoval, he never texts me emojis. Never does. At the time, I am so disconnected, I didn’t even think about it," Madrigal explained. "What I’m thinking is, 'How are they portraying me on the show?' So, I call him. He was all like, 'Oh, no, I was just wondering if you banged Raquel that night.'"
Madrigal, who noted that he doesn’t typically ask to see Vanderpump Rules episodes in advance, had asked Sandoval to send him the premiere because he was worried about how the show depicted him. When he saw it, he admitted that he was just confused about why Leviss didn’t seem enthusiastic about going to get nachos with him.
"I don’t know why she responded, like, 'Ugh.’' And now I know why. She was already dating Tom Sandoval," Madrigal claimed. "She was already having sex with Tom. And that text message from him proves it."
While the show is currently airing its tenth season, filming kicked off back in July, which is when Madrigal claims Scandoval all started -- and a month earlier than Tom Schwartz said the alleged affair began during his explosive appearance on Watch What Happens Live last week.
"It was like a crisis -- midlife crisis," Schwartz explained. "And what happened in the fall, there's a lot of gray area there. Apparently not though. I didn't think it was a linear thing. From my point of view, it became an emotional affair, which is still inappropriate."
What's more, Schwartz revealed that in Sandoval's confession, he admitted not only to the affair but that he was "in love" with Leviss.
"I didn't think it was a linear thing, but in January, Tom came to me -- he came to me in January -- and he told me that he's in love with Raquel," he continued.
As for his reaction, Schwartz said he was "flabbergasted" but not surprised.
"Listen, I think there's a lot of people out there who kind of know it was an open secret," Schwartz insisted, telling Cohen that a lot of people had an inkling about what was going on with Sandoval and Leviss.
More details about the exact timing of the couple's alleged dalliances will likely be seen on the show's season 10 reunion, which just wrapped filming late last month. Cohen, who is hosting the TV special recently teased what viewers can expect, noting that he filmed one-on-one interviews with Madix, Sandoval and Leviss.
"I did separate one-on-ones with Tom, Ariana and Raquel, so that I could get all of their stories just in conversation with me, because I had a sense that I wasn't-- now, by the way, I re-asked a lot of the stuff in front of the group, but wanted to get everyone -- and I also, I had things that I had ... my own concerns, I had my own things I wanted to confront them about, things that I had noticed," he said on SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live. "I got to do that, so that's how we started and then we brought them in as a group, OK?"
Cohen added, "So, it was a real reckoning. If you are looking to hear their story, you will. If you are looking for them to be confronted to their face about what they've done in, what I would say, an impressive manner, confrontational manner, you will get it."
